We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mariagracia Ching a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Mariagracia, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
I 1000% get my work ethic from my parents. Where I hear that some parents had a hard and soft dichotomy, both of my parents were pretty hard; hard workers and hard realists. I’m also lucky to have grown up around a lot of intensely responsible women. Somehow the women in my family had enough love and patience to always make sure everyone around them were taken care of whether it was their children or not.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I run a four chair hair salon in the Lower Eastside called Manzanilla. We’re the big yellow door off the F Train, East Broadway stop. Manzanilla to me means peace and that’s what I love about our hair home. Everyone gets served and every kind of personality has walked through our doors. Our hairstylists are all independent so we are more a collective than a hierarchical salon system. No one makes money of others’ work here and I’m proud to have designed a business that deeply reflects freedom and sustainability for artists like myself.
I was born in Peru and being raised in the states made me feel pretty alienated and culturally lost because as an immigrant you’re expected to detach from things that make you different than U.S citizens(food, music, societal values, daily routines). I’m still learning to use my own voice and best judgement even 4 years into running my own business as well as exercising my self-expression in a way that’s honest, experimental but still well received. I’m incredibly thankful to the kind people I’ve met in my career and my coworkers who trust me to operate to the best of my ability and at a high level of integrity. I love New York because New York is the first place in the U.S where I didn’t feel like the odd man out. I think it’s funny that most people here actually yearn to stand out and it inspires me to take more risks. Everything goes here and I’m honored to be a part of the chaos.
I’m at a fork in my career where I will either expand my business branching off into education for new hairstylists or follow other dreams, maybe go to school for civil engineering. I’d like to do both! I know for sure, I’ll continue to serve New Yorkers in one way or another.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Mentorship is the first, most important part of any journey. You need people who believe in your potential and are so unselfish as to teach you lifelong skills when they don’t have to.
Don’t focus on what other people are not doing. Spend as little time possible complaining about things you can’t change or control. Focus on what you can bring to the table.
Use good manners even with people who don’t deserve it. You have something to learn from every person you meet. Learn as much as you can, in any situation.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
My mentor Lina Arrojo. Since I was a young hairstylist(19 years old), she would offer me advice, constructive criticism(sometimes deconstructive ha!), take me out for drinks, introduce me to people. She did that for a lot of the apprentices. I even have pieces of designer clothes in my closet from her so I could show up to work and look the part. When someone has honest love for the industry they’re in and the for the future of the people who will be in it, it’s extremely powerful and it’s expansive. Lina showed me that kind love doesn’t run out, it just spreads and nurtures everything around it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.manzanillales.com/bookanappointment
- Instagram: mariagracia.__
Image Credits
Sasha B Photo
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